Cancer Research UK is hoping raise £190,000 this week from its first crowdfunding campaign to pay for three research projects.

The charity has listed three projects on IndieGoGo, a specialist crowdfunding donations website, with a deadline of midnight on 11 December 2014. If the projects do not receive enough support donations will be returned.

CRUK is hoping to raise £75,000 to grow 3D lung tissue in a laboratory, £75,000 to find how skin cancer spreads and £40,000 to help the immune system fight cancer.

Since launching this morning the three projects have raised £10,000 between them. The skin cancer project is in the lead with more than £5,000 pledged.

Each project is being led by a CRUK-funded scientist who wanted to carry out extra research. They have all produced videos to pitch for donations and explain the aims of their project.

Victoria Sanz-Moreno, who is leading the skin cancer project said: “We’ve never tried this before so it’s an opportunity to get people more involved in our research. It’s also a great way for people to see some of the things we’re working on and directly help us to beat cancer sooner.”

David Scott, director of research funding at CRUK, said: “Crowdfunding is growing more popular and offers an exciting new way to fund scientific research.

“We’re opening the doors to our scientists and their future research projects. By inviting everyone to be a part of the decision-making process, we can give them the power to make this crucial research happen now."